The English Spy (11 page)

T
HEY BROUGHT HIM UPSTAIRS
from the cellar and, with his eyes still blinded by duct tape, allowed him to shower for the first time. Then they dressed him in the blue-and-white tracksuit and gave him a few bites of food and some sweet milky tea to drink. It did little for his appearance. With his swollen face, pale skin, and emaciated frame, he looked like a corpse risen from the mortuary slab.

The meal complete, Keller repeated his admonition. The Irishman would be treated well so long as he answered Keller’s questions truthfully and in a normal speaking voice. If he lied, evaded, shouted, or made any foolish attempt to escape, he would be returned to the cellar and the conditions of his confinement would be far less pleasant than before. Gabriel did not speak but Walsh, with his auditory senses heightened by blindness and fear, was clearly aware of
his presence. Gabriel preferred it that way. He did not want to leave Walsh with the mistaken impression that he was under the control of a single man, even if that man happened to be one of the deadliest in the world.

Keller had no formal training in the techniques of interrogation, but like all good interrogators he established in Walsh the habit of answering questions truthfully and without hesitation or evasion. They were simple questions at first, questions with answers that were easily verifiable. Date of birth. Place of birth. Names of his parents and siblings. The schools he had attended. His recruitment by the Irish Republican Army. Walsh stated that he was born in Ballybay, County Monaghan, on October 16, 1972. The place of his birth was significant in that it was two miles from Northern Ireland, in the tense Border Region. His birthday was significant, too; he shared it with Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary leader. He attended Catholic schools until he was eighteen, when he joined the IRA. His recruiter made no attempt to glamorize the life Walsh had chosen. He would be poorly paid and would live on the knife’s edge of danger. In all likelihood he would spend several years in prison. The chances were good he would die violently.

“And the recruiter’s name?” asked Keller in his Ulsterman’s accent.

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“You are now.”

“It was Seamus McNeil,” Walsh said after a moment’s hesitation. “He was—”

“A member of the South Armagh Brigade,” Keller cut in. “He was killed in an ambush by British soldiers and buried with IRA honors, may he rest in peace.”

“Actually,” said Walsh, “he died during a shoot-out with the SAS.”

“Only cowboys and gangsters do shoot-outs,” replied Keller. “But you were about to tell me about your training.”

Which Walsh did. He was sent to a remote camp in the Republic for small-arms training and lessons in the manufacture and delivery of bombs. He was told to quit drinking and to avoid socializing with non-IRA members. Finally, six months after his recruitment, he was assigned to an elite IRA active service unit. Its membership included a master bomb maker and operational planner named Eamon Quinn. Quinn was several years older than Walsh and already a legend. In the 1980s he had been sent to a desert camp in Libya for training. But in the end, said Walsh, it was Quinn, not the Libyans, who had done most of the instructing. In fact, Quinn was the one who gave the Libyans the design for the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

“Bullshit,” said Keller.

“Whatever you say,” replied Walsh.

“Who else was at the camp with him?”

“It was PLO, mainly, and a couple of lads from one of the splinter organizations.”

“Which one?”

“I believe it was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

“You know your Palestinian terror groups.”

“We have a great deal in common with the Palestinians.”

“How so?”

“We’re both occupied by racist colonial powers.”

Keller looked at Gabriel, who was gazing impassively at his hands. Walsh, still blindfolded, seemed to sense the tension in the room. Outside, the wind prowled at the doors and windows of the cottage, as if searching for a point of entry.

“Where am I?” asked Walsh.

“Hell,” replied Keller.

“What do I have to do to get out?”

“Keep talking.”

“What do you want to know?”

“The details of your first operation.”

“It was 1993.”

“What month?”

“April.”

“Ulster or mainland?”

“Mainland.”

“What city?”

“The only city that matters.”

“London?”

“Yes.”

“Bishopsgate?”

Walsh nodded.
Bishopsgate
. . .

The truck, a Ford Iveco tipper, vanished from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, in March. They took it to a rented warehouse and painted it dark blue. Then Quinn fitted it with the bomb, a one-ton ammonium nitrate/fuel oil device that he assembled in South Armagh and smuggled into England. On the morning of April 24, Walsh drove the truck to London and parked it outside 99 Bishopsgate, an office tower occupied solely by HSBC. The blast shattered more than five hundred tons of glass, collapsed a church, and killed a news photographer. The British government responded by surrounding London’s financial district in a security cordon known as the “ring of steel.” Undeterred, the IRA returned to London in February 1996 with another truck bomb designed and assembled by Eamon Quinn. This time, the target was Canary Wharf in the Docklands. The blast was so powerful it shook windows five miles
away. The prime ministers of Britain and Ireland quickly announced the resumption of peace talks. Eighteen months later, in July 1997, the IRA accepted a cease-fire. “It was,” said Liam Walsh, “a fucking disaster.”

“And when the IRA fractured later that autumn,” said Keller, “you went with McKevitt and Bernadette Sands?”

“No,” replied Walsh. “I went with Eamon Quinn.”

From the outset, Walsh continued, the Real IRA was riddled with informers reporting to MI5 and Crime and Security, a shadowy division of the Garda Síochána that operated out of unmarked offices in the Phoenix Park section of Dublin. Even so, the group managed to carry out a string of bombings, including a devastating attack on Banbridge on August 1, 1998. The bomb weighed five hundred pounds and was concealed inside a red Vauxhall Cavalier. The coded telephone warnings were imprecise—no location, no time of detonation. As a result, thirty-three people were seriously injured, including two officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Pieces of the Vauxhall were found six hundred yards away. It was, said Walsh, a preview of coming attractions.

“Omagh,” said Keller quietly.

Walsh said nothing.

“You were part of the operational team?”

Walsh nodded.

“Which car?” asked Keller. “Bomb, scout, or escape?”

“Bomb.”

“Driver or passenger?”

“I was supposed to be the driver, but there was a change at the last minute.”

“Who drove?”

Walsh hesitated, then said, “Quinn.”

“Why the change?”

“He said he was more on edge than usual before an operation. He said the driving would help calm his nerves.”

“But that wasn’t the real reason, was it, Liam? Quinn wanted to take matters into his own hands. Quinn wanted to put a nail in the coffin of the peace process.”

“A bullet in the head was how he described it.”

“He was supposed to leave the bomb at the courthouse?”

“That was the plan.”

“Did he even look for a parking space?”

“No,” said Walsh, shaking his head. “He went straight to Lower Market Street and parked outside S.D. Kells.”

“Why didn’t you do something?”

“I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“You should have tried harder, Liam.”

“You obviously don’t know Eamon Quinn.”

“Where was the escape car?”

“In the parking lot of the supermarket.”

“And when you got inside?”

“The call went back to the other side of the border.”

“‘The bricks are in the wall.’”

Walsh nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone the bomb was in the wrong place?”

“If I’d opened my mouth, Quinn would have killed me. Besides,” Walsh added, “it was too late.”

“And when the bomb went off?”

“It was shit city.”

The death and devastation ignited revulsion on both sides of the border and around the world. The Real IRA issued an apology and announced a cease-fire, but it was too late; the movement had suffered irreparable damage. Walsh settled in Dublin to look after the Real IRA’s interests in the burgeoning drug trade. Quinn went into hiding.

“Where?”

“Spain.”

“What did he do?”

“He hung out on the beach until the money ran out.”

“And then?”

“He called an old friend and said he wanted back in the game.”

“Who was the friend?”

Walsh hesitated, then said, “Muammar Gaddafi.”

I
T WASN
’
T REALLY
G
ADDAFI
, Walsh added quickly. It was a close confidant from Libyan intelligence whom Quinn had befriended when he was at the desert terror training camp. Quinn requested sanctuary, and the man from Libyan intelligence, after consulting with the ruler, agreed to allow Quinn into the country. He lived in a walled villa in an upscale Tripoli neighborhood and did odd jobs for the Libyan security services. He was also a frequent visitor to Gaddafi’s underground bunker, where he would regale the leader with stories of the fight against the British. In time, Gaddafi shared Quinn with some of his less savory regional allies. He developed contacts with every bad actor on the continent: dictators, warlords, mercenaries, diamond smugglers, Islamic militants of every stripe. He also made the acquaintance of a Russian arms dealer who was pouring weaponry and ammunition into every civil war and
insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa. The arms dealer agreed to send a small container of AK-47s and plastic explosives to the Real IRA. Walsh took delivery of the shipment in Dublin.

“Do you remember the name of the man from Libyan intelligence?” asked Keller.

“He called himself Abu Muhammad.”

Keller looked at Gabriel, who nodded slowly.

“And the Russian arms dealer?” asked Keller.

“It was Ivan Kharkov, the one who was killed in Saint-Tropez a few years ago.”

“You’re sure, Liam? You’re sure it was Ivan?”

“Who else could it be? Ivan controlled the arms trade in Africa, and he killed anyone who tried to get in on the action.”

“And the villa in Tripoli? Do you know where it was?”

“It was in the neighborhood they call al-Andalus.”

“The street?”

“Via Canova. Number Twenty-Seven,” Walsh added. “But don’t waste your time. Quinn left Libya years ago.”

“What happened?”

“Gaddafi decided to clean up his act. He gave up his weapons programs and told the Americans and the Europeans that he wanted to normalize relations. Tony Blair shook his hand in a tent outside Tripoli. BP got drilling rights on Libyan soil. Remember?”

“I remember, Liam.”

Apparently, said Walsh, MI6 knew that Quinn was living secretly in Tripoli. The chief of MI6 prevailed upon Gaddafi to send Quinn packing, and Gaddafi agreed. He called a few of his friends in Africa, but no one would take Quinn in. Then he called one of his best friends in the world, and the deal was done. A week later Gaddafi gave Quinn a signed copy of his
Green Book
and put him on an airplane.

“And the friend who agreed to take Quinn?”

“Three guesses,” said Walsh. “First two don’t count.”

The friend was Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, ally of Russia, Cuba, and the mullahs of Tehran, thorn in the side of America. Chavez saw himself as a leader of the world’s revolutionary movement, and he operated a not-so-secret training camp for terrorists and leftist rebels on Margarita Island. Quinn soon became the star attraction. He worked with everyone from the Shining Path of Peru to Hamas and Hezbollah, sharing the deadly tricks of the trade he’d acquired during his long career matching wits with the British. Chavez, like Gaddafi before him, treated Quinn well. He gave him a villa by the sea and a diplomatic passport to travel the world. He even gave him a new face.

“Who did the work?”

“Gaddafi’s doctor.”

“The Brazilian?”

Walsh nodded. “He came to Caracas and performed the surgery in a hospital there. He gave Quinn a total reconstruction. The old pictures are useless now. Even I barely recognized him.”

“You saw him when he was in Venezuela?”

“Twice.”

“You went to the camp?”

“Never.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t cleared for the camp. I saw him on the mainland.”

“Keep talking, Liam.”

A year after Quinn arrived in Venezuela, a senior man from VEVAK, the Iranian intelligence service, paid a quiet visit to the
island. He wasn’t there to see his allies from Hezbollah; he was there to see Quinn. The man from VEVAK stayed on the island for a week. And when he went back to Tehran, Quinn went with him.

“Why?”

“The Iranians wanted Quinn to build a weapon.”

“What kind of weapon?”

“A weapon that Hezbollah could use against Israeli tanks and armored vehicles in southern Lebanon.”

Keller looked at Gabriel, who appeared to be contemplating a crack in the ceiling. Walsh, unaware of the true identity of his small audience, was still talking.

“The Iranians set Quinn up in a weapons factory in a Tehran suburb called Lavizan. He built a version of an antitank weapon that he’d been working on for years. It created a fireball that traveled a thousand feet per second and engulfed the advancing armor in flames. Hezbollah used it against the Israelis in the summer of 2006. The Israeli tanks went up like kindling. It was like the Holocaust.”

Keller again cast a sidelong glance toward Gabriel, who was now staring directly at Liam Walsh.

“And when he finished designing the antitank weapon?” asked Keller.

“He went to Lebanon to work directly with Hezbollah.”

“What kind of work?”

“Roadside bombs, mainly.”

“And then?”

“The Iranians sent him to Yemen to work with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

“I didn’t know there were ties between the Iranians and al-Qaeda.”

“Whoever told you that?”

“Where is he now?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

“You’re lying, Liam.”

“I’m not. I swear I don’t know where he is or who he’s working for.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Six months ago.”

“Where?”

“Spain.”

“Spain is a big country, Liam.”

“It was in the south, in Sotogrande.”

“An Irish playground.”

“It’s like Dublin with the sun turned up.”

“Where did you meet?”

“A little hotel down by the marina. Very quiet.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted me to deliver a package.”

“What kind of package?”

“Money.”

“Who was the money for?”

“His daughter.”

“I never knew he was married.”

“Most people don’t.”

“Where’s the daughter?”

“In Belfast with her mother.”

“Keep talking, Liam.”

The combined services of British intelligence had assembled a mountain of material on the life and times of Eamon Quinn, but nowhere in their voluminous files was there any mention of a wife or a child. It
was no accident, said Walsh. Quinn the operational planner had gone to great lengths to keep his family a secret. Walsh claimed to have attended the ceremony at which the two were wed, and later he helped to manage the family’s financial affairs during the years Quinn was living abroad as a superstar of international terrorism. The package Quinn gave to Walsh in the Spanish resort of Sotogrande contained one hundred thousand pounds in used bills. It was the largest single payment Quinn had ever entrusted to his old friend.

“Why so much money?” asked Keller.

“He said it would be the last payment for a while.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“I knew better.”

“And you delivered the payment in full?”

“Every single pound.”

“You didn’t keep a small service charge for yourself? After all, Quinn would have never known.”

“You obviously don’t know Eamon Quinn.”

Keller asked whether Quinn had ever stolen into Belfast to see his family.

“Never.”

“And they never traveled outside the country to see him?”

“He was afraid the British would follow them. Besides,” Walsh added, “they wouldn’t have recognized him. Quinn had a new face. Quinn was someone else.”

Which returned them to the subject of Quinn’s surgically altered appearance. Gabriel and Keller had in their possession the images that the French had captured in Saint Barthélemy—a few frames of airport video, a few grainy still photos captured by storefront security cameras—but in none was Quinn’s face clearly visible. He was
a mop of black hair and a beard, a man to glimpse once and quickly forget. Liam Walsh had the power to complete Quinn’s portrait, for Walsh had sat across from him six months earlier, in a Spanish hotel room.

Gabriel had produced composite sketches under challenging circumstances, but never with a witness who was blindfolded. In fact, he was quite certain it was not possible. Keller explained how the process would work. There was another man present, he said, a man who was as good with a sketchpad and a pencil as he was with his fists and a gun. This man was neither Irish nor an Ulsterman. Walsh was to describe Quinn’s appearance for him. He could look at the man’s sketchpad, but under no circumstances was he to look at his face.

“What if I look accidentally?”

“Don’t.”

Keller removed the duct tape from Walsh’s eyes. The Irishman blinked several times. Then he stared directly at the figure seated on the opposite side of the table behind a sketchpad and a box of colored pencils.

“You just violated the rules,” said Gabriel calmly.

“Do you want to know what he looks like, or not?”

Gabriel picked up a pencil. “Let’s start with his eyes.”

“They’re green,” replied Walsh. “Like yours.”

They worked without a break for the next two hours. Walsh described, Gabriel sketched, Walsh corrected, Gabriel revised. Finally, at midnight, the portrait was complete. The Brazilian plastic surgeon had done a fine job. He had given Quinn a face without character or a memorable feature. Still, it was a face Gabriel would recognize if it passed him on the street.

If Walsh was curious about the identity of the green-eyed man behind the sketchpad, he gave no sign of it. Nor did he resist when Keller covered his eyes with a blindfold of duct tape, or when Gabriel injected him with enough sedative to keep him quiet for a few hours. They zipped him unconscious into the duffel bag and wiped down every item and surface in the cottage that any of them had touched. Then they hoisted him into the trunk of the Škoda and climbed into the front seat. Keller drove. It was his turf.

The roads were empty, the rain was sporadic, a torrential downpour one minute, a blustery mist the next. Keller smoked one cigarette after the next and listened to the news on the radio. Gabriel stared out the window at the black hills and the windswept moors and bogs. In his thoughts, however, there was only Eamon Quinn. Since fleeing Ireland, Quinn had worked with some of the most dangerous men in the world. It was possible he had been acting out of conscience or political belief, but Gabriel doubted it. Surely, he thought, Quinn was past all that. He had gone the way of Carlos and Abu Nidal before him. He was a terrorist for hire, killing at the behest of powerful patrons. But who had paid for Quinn’s bullet? Who had commissioned him to kill a princess? Gabriel had a long list of potential suspects. For now, though, finding Quinn would take precedence. Liam Walsh had given them ample places to look, none more promising than a house in West Belfast. A part of Gabriel wanted to search elsewhere, for he regarded wives and children as off-limits. Quinn, however, had left them no other choice.